Today's Spacemage

by Timothy Ellis

  "What changed your mind?"

  "Jen's reaction to hearing his voice. I knew then she'd never heal if I just made it look like he killed himself."

  "So what new enemies have you made?"

  "Whoever is above him in the military chain of command, who protected him. Possibly family as well. Might even have been political. I know almost nothing, so have no way of telling. Someone protected him, and that person will come after me somehow."

  "Go after them first."

  "There's a little matter of a war to end."

  "Easy things first huh?"

  She was quietly laughing. At me or with me, was the question, but I wasn’t asking it.

  "Can I have a word Thorn?" came from Jen, at the doorway.

  "I'll get us some food," said Tasha, who rose and left.

  Jen came in, and sat where Tasha had been. She studied my face.

  "You look as emotionally conflicted as I feel."

  "You look like shit."

  "I feel like shit. Tomorrow I'll make an effort to fake not looking it."

  I smiled at the weak joke.

  "Thorn? Why did you do all that? For me? After I hounded you into being alone for five years? You made some very powerful enemies today. Why do it when you didn’t have to?"

  "You needed it."

  She choked up. I waited. Tasha put her head around the corner, and I gave her a slight head wag. She vanished again.

  "You did it because I needed it?"

  "What other reason is there?"

  "But why make enemies when you don’t need to?"

  "You're my friend Jen. You get what you need."

  "I don’t deserve a friend like you."

  "You don’t get a say in it."

  She smiled.

  "What now?"

  "Now we deal with this war. If something else comes along, we'll deal with that as well."

  "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  "Dinner is served," said Tasha.

  She put a tray down next to each of us, left, and returned with her own. As we ate, I had Jen fill me in on what had been happening here.

  "So the situation when I left weeks ago to come get you," she finished up, "was we still had five armed freighters here. And two more military ships. Two of each were destroyed while we were away, one of them being the ship lost as we arrived. The last three freighters left while we were in court, needing a shipyard. So the remainder of the fleet is military, and we're reserve on detached command. The next admiral to arrive will also probably try to enforce us returning fully to the military. How do you want to handle it?"

  "Without killing someone I hope."

  Nineteen

  A zombie him dug his way out of his grave, and chased me across a desert. The stake left a line behind him as he shambled along, arms outstretched.

  I woke suddenly, disoriented, and very afraid. And very sure I'd missed something very important.

  "Shit Thorn!"

  "Huh?"

  "There's a layer of dirt over the whole room!"

  I threw back the cover, and dust rose in a cloud. The dirt was under the covers as well. Tasha leapt off the bed, skidded on the loose surface, and went down. I inserted a large pillow under her, to break her fall. It stirred up yet more dust, and soon both of us were coughing.

  We retreated into the bathroom. Tasha showered, while I removed the mess. I quickly showered after her, and we went for an early breakfast. Tasha went back to her weapons board, and I sought out Jess.

  Predictably, Jess was arms deep in something mechanically messy.

  "Want to go look at alien tech?"

  "Hell yes! Just wait while I get cleaned up."

  I blinked, and she was all cleaned up.

  She blinked rapidly, looked herself over as best she could, and looked at me.

  "I guess I'm ready."

  Without even touching her this time, I moved us to stand on a small hill above the ship graveyard I was gathering. From up here they didn't look particularly large. But the four new ships were significantly bigger than the original one. In particular, much longer and leaner.

  "Is that where they went? I had wondered. Why here?"

  "No-one knows where this is. And I didn’t want some military type blowing them up out of spite."

  "Why not?"

  "Does it bother you neither side is talking to the other, or even trying to?"

  "No. Why should it?"

  "That's what bothers me the most. No-one is even bothered by it. Just how long has hostilities been going on, do you know?"

  "I've no idea. Centuries at least. Maybe longer."

  I looked at her with my mouth hanging open. The whole concept of a war lasting for centuries, and for so long no-one was even aware of how long, was mind boggling.

  Maybe this was the reason for me being here. To stop it once and for all. Only that implied some higher power was responsible for me being here. And I wasn’t quite ready to give such a notion a look in. It meant my time jump was arranged, and not accidental. I pushed away the whole line of thought.

  "I was wondering if these could be repaired."

  She looked at me sharply, but there was a grin on her face.

  "Shall we see? Engine room of your choice please."

  We moved, after I looked to make sure where we were moving to.

  To me, it all looked the same as on the ship we were on, but Jess flip flopped from 'what a load of crap', to 'what a great idea' as she looked things over. But to me, it was machinery, and it worked, which was all I needed to know.

  I left her there, and jumped back to the flagship. There were gasps of shock when I materialized in front of the command chair, although the captain himself was merely annoyed.

  "What do you want Thorn?"

  "Would you care to look over one of the alien hulks?"

  "I would," interrupted a bearded man, at one of the consoles.

  "Of course you would," said the captain. "And I would too. XO?"

  "Sir?"

  "I'm off the ship for a while. You have the bridge."

  "Aye sir. Wait. Off the ship?"

  The captain actually smiled at him, and I gave it a few seconds, and jumped us to where Jess was. She didn’t even notice our arrival, until slapped on the shoulder by beard. The two exchanged greetings, and I gathered he was also an engineer.

  The captain and I began walking in what we hoped was the direction to the bridge.

  "I'm sorry captain, I never did get your name."

  "Bentley. And I'm sorry to admit, I had no idea what was going on. If I had, Admiral or no, I'd have taken steps to make sure it couldn’t happen again. In fact, I already have. I can't agree with your methods, but the evidence was damning, and he deserved to die. I'd have preferred the firing squad though."

  "Perhaps so, but I took the responsibility for condemning him, and I did the execution myself. Why put a squad through the agony of not knowing if your shot killed him or not?"

  "I hadn't thought of it that way. It would bother me if I was one of those shooting. It doesn’t bother you?"

  "It bothers me a great deal captain, but I'm not going to ask someone else to do, what is mine to do. That's the road to becoming a tyrant."

  "True enough. Who else is looking at this heap of junk?"

  "You've seen them."

  "Can we get some weapon techs over here as well?"

  I thought of Tasha, and she was suddenly standing beside us.

  "FUCK!"

  She hit me solidly on the arm.

  "Ouch!"

  "Don’t do that!"

  "I didn't. I just thought about you for a second, and you jumped here."

  "Well don’t think about me then." I looked at her. "Fine, but get control of that. Why am I here, wherever here is?"

  "Alien ship. Alien guns. Alien missiles. Weapons officer."

  She didn’t say a thing, just whacked me on the other arm, and shot off down the passageway.

  Bentley was we
aring a bemused expression on his face.

  "Girlfriend. I think."

  "Ah. Can we be a bit more deliberate about getting some of my crew here?"

  "Sure. Let's find somewhere bigger to bring them to."

  We set off again.

  "Captain, can you do a truly objective assessment?"

  "I’d like to think I can. Why?"

  "I want to know which is the better fighting ship. Yours, or this one. Assuming both are in top condition, which of cause, neither of them are. Can you do that?"

  "Which ship would I prefer to take into battle? I can do that. Why?"

  "Do we have a better ship than yours is?"

  "Not at the moment. The next class of ship is still in the development phase. And most of the older ships died first. The two we have left here are, were, the most modern we had. Both need a shipyard. In fact, until you turned up, I thought we were gone."

  "How was Admiral Rapist as a commander?"

  He gave me a curious look.

  "Do you not remember names? Or in your mind, his is already forgotten?"

  "Both."

  "He was too aggressive in some ways, but too timid in others."

  "Let me guess. He parked you too far away from the jump point?"

  "How'd you guess that?"

  "I didn’t guess. Strategy and tactics were my skills during basic training. It was obvious the fleet was totally out of position for jump point defense. As demonstrated by where it is now, pretty well right on top of it, with all ships aligned so they're not in each other's line of fire if something comes through."

  "It's why neither of us didn’t fight the orders, even though given by a junior. The Commander knows her stuff, and I've become too complacent with sub-standard Admirals. In normal circumstances, I’d have taken a piece off her for insubordination. But she was giving the right orders, and both of us senior captains hadn't. Admittedly, we had no coms when she gave them, but had we not had an admiral on board, I’d have accepted her orders as suggestions and acted on them."

  "Wake up call, huh?"

  "Yeah. This looks like a good place."

  It looked like some sort of unused storeroom, so we walked into the middle.

  "Ready?"

  "No."

  I jumped us back to his ship. He started barking commands immediately, causing his people to jump almost out of their skins. Several minutes later, a dozen people were standing next to him. A blink later we were all standing in the store room. He issued instructions, and people streamed out, and headed in both directions. We followed them at a more leisurely pace, finally finding the bridge.

  One of Bentley's crew was already at work there.

  "Sir?"

  "Report."

  "I can't read the language sir. A few things are pretty obvious, given the displays. But read it? No chance. We need a linguist."

  "Do you recall there being a linguist on the ship?"

  "No sir."

  "I think I can help," I interjected.

  "Be my guest."

  There had to be a coms unit of some kind, probably even a whole console. I focused my intent on ship coms, and commanded the captain's log to play. Immediately, a deep male voice began talking, and the crewman jumped. At the same time, one of the screens was showing some form of writing.

  I concentrated my magic on the spoken words. I frowned as some of it sounded vaguely familiar. In my mind, bits of it began to translate, the same way it had when I'd been overlooking the eating section of the pirate station. After a few minutes, all of it was understandable. I kept the magic going until the written words were also readable. Once they were, I extended the intent to all words, written and spoken, on the ship.

  "I can read it!" exclaimed the crewman.

  Bentley looked at me with an 'is there anything you can't do' expression on his face.

  "When do you want your assessment?" he asked.

  "When you’re done."

  "Where will you be?"

  "Back in my living space."

  "How do we get back?"

  "Say 'ready to come back Thorn'. But take your time. This ship should have food if you need it. From the look of the bodies, they most likely eat much of what we do. No idea about taste though."

  "Bodies?"

  "The crew died when the hull was punctured in too many places. I buried them."

  "What did they look like?"

  "Us. Except for having burnt orange skin. Didn’t you know?"

  "No-one did, until now. We've never managed to take a ship before. They've been quite obsessive about destroying their own wreckage and crew remains. If we had samples, the high command and the government haven’t told anyone."

  "You have a good pathologist on board?"

  "Not as such. The ship's doc is trained, but hasn’t ever done an autopsy by herself, as far as I know."

  "I'll send her a body then."

  "Make her day I expect."

  He was grinning.

  I nodded to him, and jumped to his ship, found the medical area, which was full of people, all with injuries, found the morgue section, and transferred a random alien body to the metal bed there. A passing nurse saw me, and came in.

  "What are you doing here?" She looked past me. "And what the hell is that?"

  "Alien body. Get your doc to do a full autopsy as soon as crew treatment is complete. The captain will want a full report when he returns."

  "When will that be?"

  "Could be anytime."

  I smiled, and jumped out.

  Twenty

  Two days, and two lonely nights, later, a fast courier arrived.

  The supply ships had been and gone. Several replacement military ships had arrived, undamaged ones from one of the other blockade points. None of the people examining the alien ships had so far wanted to return.

  "Thorn, you better join us on the main bridge," said Jen, through coms.

  We'd had several long chats over the last couple of days, and she was doing a lot better now. Her face was back to looking gorgeous, instead of a permanent hurricane.

  Her tone made me jump there, instead of walking.

  "What do we have?"

  "Trouble," said Lea, enigmatically.

  "How so?"

  "They sent a two stripe Admiral," said Jen.

  "Do you know who it is?"

  "Oh yes. It’s the one I appealed to, and who signed my transfer papers instead."

  "Oh. So it's have some fun time then?"

  I grinned at them, but they weren't interested in humour. The marine at coms waved at Jen.

  "Flagship XO is on the horn, Jen. You want it?"

  She waved it onto the main screen.

  "Commander?" asked Jen, smiling. "Problem?"

  "Do you know where Captain Bentley is?"

  "No. Why?"

  "The new Admiral is expecting him to meet him at the airlock when he comes aboard."

  "When is this supposed to happen?"

  "Five minutes."

  I started chuckling. No-one joined in. Jen looked at me, saw me smiling as well as chuckling, and turned back to the screen.

  "He won't be here."

  "What do I do?"

  "Do you want to be fleet command, or should I be? Captain Townsend should be, but his coms system is still down while they do core repairs. So it's you or me until he's back online. Technically you do outrank me in terms of time in service, being assigned to a more senior ship, and you're in the senior service."

  "I'll happily defer to you Commander."

  "I accept Commander."

  He looked relieved. I wondered how long he'd actually been a full commander. Longer than Jen obviously, but her promotion was very recent. Maybe his was as well.

  "What do I tell the Admiral?"

  "You tell him Captain Bentley, and some of the crew, are currently examining captured enemy ships for anything which will allow us to fight them more effectively. He'll return when he's satisfied there is no more to learn."

&
nbsp; "The Admiral will want to talk to him."

  "The Admiral is going to be frustrated for a while. Stop asking questions, and get to the airlock. If you’re not there to render boarding honours, I wouldn’t want to be you."

  He nodded, and the com screen closed.

  "Ah to be a fly on the wall for that meeting," said Lea, finally letting her grin out.

  "I can arrange that."

  One of the screens changed to show an airlock with crewmembers lined up on both sides of the hatch. The commander arrived breathless, and took his place opposite the airlock. The lock began to cycle, and the notes of some sort of honour greeting sounded through the coms.

  A large man emerged, two wide stripes on his cuffs, and the expectation of absolute obedience on his lined face, underneath the thinning grey hair.

  He stood there while the notes ended, and he and the Commander saluted. Neither looked happy. In fact, the only person who did, was me.

  "Where's your captain, Commander?"

  "Not on the ship sir."

  "Where is he?"

  "He and some of the crew are off assessing a captured enemy ship."

  "We don’t have any captured ships."

  "We do now sir."

  "Why wasn’t this reported?"

  "Sir? I don’t know sir. We found out several days ago. I assumed the Captain had reported it."

  "Don’t use that word around me ever again."

  "Sir? What word sir?"

  "Assumed. You give me facts or nothing. Clear?"

  "Yes sir. This way to the bridge sir. The current fleet command is on another ship."

  The Admiral looked like he was about to explode, but thought better of it. He waved the commander away, and followed him. A lot of luggage came in the hatch behind him, but headed off a different way.

  I let the sight on screen end. But kept looking inside his baggage.

  Twenty One

  Jen started counting down from ten.

  At two, the coms marine startled, looked to Jen, who nodded, and at zero, the Admiral's face was showing on the main screen.

  "Commander."

  The pause was long, and the look on his face, was not the one you wanted to see on an Admiral.

  "Who put you in charge?"

  There was a definite emphasis on the 'you'.

  "Just temporary Admiral," said Jen. "Only until Captain Bentley gets back."